Re: The Shining City Upon a Hill
If that were true then why do the majority of Democrats want Biden gone? PLEASE DON'T, JOE! New Poll Shows Majority of Democrats Don't Want Second Biden Term
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Re: The Shining City Upon a Hill
President Biden signs into law same-sex marriage bill
President Joe Biden signed into law Tuesday landmark new federal protections for same-sex and interracial couples, capping both a personal and national evolution on an issue that’s enjoyed growing acceptance over the past decade.
Biden signed the Respect for Marriage Act before thousands of invited guests on the South Lawn at an event the White House said reflected the importance of the moment.
“Marriage is a simple proposition. Who do you love? And will you be loyal to that person you love?” the president asked from the South Lawn. “It’s not more complicated than that.”
Biden said the law he was about to sign recognizes that “everyone should have the right to answer those questions for themselves without the government interference,” and secures the federal “protections that come with marriage.”
“For most of our nation’s history, we denied interracial couples and same sex couples from these protections,” Biden said. “It failed to treat them with equal dignity and respect. And now, this law requires an interracial marriage and same-sex marriage must be recognized as legal in every state in the nation.”
The new law officially voids the Defense of Marriage Act, which defined marriage as between a man and a woman. It mandates that states honor the validity of out-of-state marriage licenses, including same-sex and interracial unions.
As a senator, Biden voted for the Defense of Marriage Act in 1996. The bill signing Tuesday amounted to the culmination of his transformation on the issue. The bill passed in the House with 39 Republicans joining Democrats in support, after getting through the Senate with 12 Republican senators.
Such a bill had seemed improbable for many in Washington not that long ago, even as public opinion on same-sex marriage has continued to shift over the years: 68% of Americans supported same-sex marriage in 2021, up 14 percentage points from 2014, according to surveys from the nonprofit, nonpartisan Public Religious Research Institute.
But the public rallying and push to pass federal protections for same-sex and interracial marriage intensified this year after the Supreme Court overturned Roe v. Wade, sparking fresh fears that the nation’s highest court would also reconsider other existing rights around marriage equality.
The day the Supreme Court’s landmark ruling was issued in June, Biden warned that Justice Clarence Thomas “explicitly called to reconsider the right of marriage equality, the right of couples to make their choices on contraception. This is an extreme and dangerous path the Court is now taking us on.”
He would go on to give similar warnings on the campaign trail leading up to the midterms: “We want to make it clear: It’s not just about Roe and choice. It’s about – it’s about marriage – same-sex marriage. It’s about contraception. It’s about a whole range of things that are on the docket,” he said at a Democratic National Committee reception in August.
For Biden, Tuesday’s event bookended a moment a decade ago that helped spark a national political transformation on the issue. When he was serving a vice president, Biden shocked the country with an unexpected declaration delivered in an interview on NBC’s “Meet the Press”: He came out in public support of same-sex marriage for the first time.
“I am absolutely comfortable with the fact that men marrying men, women marrying women, and heterosexual men and women marrying another are entitled to the same exact rights, all the civil rights, all the civil liberties,” Biden said when asked whether he was comfortable with same-sex marriage.
Those words – which Biden insisted in subsequent years were unplanned – marked a stunning personal evolution for the longtime creature of Washington, who as senator had voted to block federal recognition of same-sex marriages and previously insisted that marriage should only take place between a man and a woman.
The interview would also turn out to be a watershed moment in modern American politics, prompting then-President Barack Obama to stake out the same position several days later and giving permission to other national leaders to also follow suit.
“That single interview was a transformative moment in Biden’s development as a politician. In the Senate, as a presidential candidate and as vice president, he always had been very cautious around LGBT issues, afraid of taking any position that opponents could use to portray him as a left-winger,” Sasha Issenberg, author of “The Engagement: America’s Quarter-Century Struggle Over Same-Sex Marriage,”. “But the reception to what he said on ‘Meet the Press’ was universal praise within his party, especially from LGBT advocates and donors who had previously been skeptical of him.”
Basking in the hero-treatment from liberal activists, Biden would go on to aggressively associate himself with LGBT causes in the years to come, and has in particularly been “unusually bold” when it comes to transgender rights, Issenberg said.
Among the guests invited to the bill signing at the White House Tuesday were prominent members of the LGBTQ community and activists. They included Judy Kasen-Windsor, widow of gay rights activist Edie Windsor; Matthew Haynes, co-owner of Club Q, the LGBTQ club in Colorado Springs where a gunman last month killed five people in a mass shooting; Club Q shooting survivors James Slaugh and Michael Anderson; and a number of plaintiffs from cases that culminated in the landmark civil rights case Obergefell vs. Hodges, in which the Supreme Court ruled in 2015 that same-sex couples can marry nationwide.
Philanthropist and Democratic donor David Bohnett, who has been an outspoken gay- and transgender-rights activist and longtime supporter of Biden, said that Tuesday’s bill signing could not come at a more crucial moment.
“[Biden] has demonstrated his support for decades for lesbian and gay civil rights, and Tuesday’s signing into law is a reaffirmation of that during this time when rights are under assault,” Bohnett said. “I think we’re here in response to the hateful and discriminatory actions and tactics by so many in the right-wing and so many that want to dismantle the rights that we fought so hard for for a long time.”Comment
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Re: The Shining City Upon a Hill
Nuclear fusion breakthrough a milestone for the future of clean energy, US officials say
US Department of Energy officials announced a history-making accomplishment in nuclear fusion Tuesday: For the first time, US scientists produced more energy from fusion than the laser energy they used to power the experiment.
A so-called “net energy gain” is a major milestone in a decadeslong attempt to source clean, limitless energy from nuclear fusion – the reaction that happens when two or more atoms are fused together.
The experiment put in 2.05 megajoules of energy to the target and resulted in 3.15 megajoules of fusion energy output – generating more than 50% more energy than was put in. It’s the first time an experiment resulted in a meaningful gain of energy.
“This monumental scientific breakthrough is a milestone for the future of clean energy,” said Democratic US Sen. Alex Padilla of California in a statement.
The breakthrough was made by a team of scientists at the Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory’s National Ignition Facility in California on December 5 – a facility the size of a sports stadium and equipped with 192 lasers.
Energy Secretary Jennifer Granholm on Tuesday called the breakthrough a “milestone.”
“Ignition allows us to replicate, for the first time, certain conditions that are only found in the stars and sun,” Granholm said. “This milestone moves us one significant step closer to the possibility of zero-carbon, abundant fusion energy powering our society.”
Granholm said scientists at Livermore and other national labs do work that will help the US move quickly toward clean energy and maintain a nuclear deterrent without nuclear testing.
“This is what it looks like for America to lead, and we’re just getting started,” Granholm said. “If we can advance fusion energy, we could use it to produce clean electricity, transportation fuels, power, heavy industry and so much more.”
Why a net gain in energy matters
We are still a very long way from having nuclear fusion power the electric grid, experts caution. The US project, while groundbreaking, only produced enough energy to boil about 2.5 gallons of water, said Tony Roulstone, a fusion expert from the engineering department at the University of Cambridge.
That may not seem like much, but the experiment is still hugely significant because scientists demonstrated that they can create more energy than they started with. While there are many more steps until this can be commercially viable, that is a major hurdle to cross with nuclear fusion, experts say.
Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory Director Kim Budil on Tuesday called her lab’s breakthrough a “fundamental building block” to eventually realizing nuclear fusion powering electricity. She estimated it will take “a few decades” more work before it’s ready for commercial use.
Roulstone pointed out that big ambitious nuclear energy projects must start somewhere: In 1942, scientists in Chicago ran the first fission nuclear reactor for just 5 minutes in its first run; 15 years later, the first US-based nuclear power plant went online in Pennsylvania.Comment
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Re: The Shining City Upon a Hill
Republican support for another Trump bid has significantly eroded.
Biden now leads Trump in a head-to-head matchup, 47%-40%.Comment
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Re: The Shining City Upon a Hill
White House Press Sec Makes Embarrassing Mistake 3 Times - Pulls a Joe Biden and WH Doctors Transcript
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Re: The Shining City Upon a Hill
Top official laughs nervously when GOP senator confronts him with Biden's own words on oil and gas: 'Which was the lie?' - TheBlaze
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Re: The Shining City Upon a Hill
GOP Rep. Mace Goes Nuclear on Trans Activist, Confronts Him with His Own Tweets During Hearing
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Re: The Shining City Upon a Hill
McCarthy tells members he is a 'hell no' on omnibus spending bill | Washington ExaminerComment
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Re: The Shining City Upon a Hill
Biden Top Official Caught in Double-Standard - After GOP Leader Resigns, Buttigieg Is Flying Private on Gov't DimeComment
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Re: The Shining City Upon a Hill
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